Documents

This paper provides a description of social and affordable housing provision in Ireland.

Ambitious action is required, if Ireland is to have a more cost-effective and stable housing system. A new report from the National Economic and Social Council argues that social housing is ‘at the crossroads’, with many people on low incomes now confronting an extremely difficult housing situation. This is evident in several ways: the number of mortgages in distress; long waiting lists for housing; rising homelessness; and rapidly rising rents, particularly in Dublin.

The Council supports the draft Code’s aim of guaranteeing market unity • The opinion considers that in some events in the personal sphere, commercial law could clash with labour law • It calls for a clearer definition in the draft of the regulatory map for cooperatives with a view to greater legal certainty • The Council expresses concern that new registry requirements may give rise to double registration issues, with a greater bureaucratic burden, contrary to the plan for simplification of administration The opinion approves the aims of the future law, and in particular the main aim of guaranteeing market unity by providing the same contractual standards for commercial transactions throughout the country.It also approves the intention of avoiding a wide spread of legislation in the commercial sphere, so as to provide market operators with legal certainty.But the Council notes that some areas are included without amendment, with a mere reference to the respective sector-specific laws, while other activities, such as transport or tourism, are not provided for. Accordingly it endorses the legislative technique used in the draft Code, of numbering sections so as facilitate subsequent amendments. This flexibility for the amending of certain provisions represents a commitment by the legislators to progressively include modifications and new areas of commerce in the Code so as enhance legal certainty, which in the Spanish ESC’s view is what is required.Despite this broadly positive assessment, the Council’s opinion also refers to aspects of the draft which need improvement. In this respect it considers that in certain events in the personal sphere, commercial law might be at odds with labour law. In the view of the government’s chief advisory body in socioeconomic and employment matters, the text ought to precisely define when certain professional relationships should be regarded as within the sphere of commercial or of employment legislation.Without being exhaustive, we may note the need for a reference to employment legislation in the provisions for contract works by companies, contracts for the provision of market services, international registered office transfers or legal arrangements for mergers, and to the employment effects of the provisions regarding company groups.In the employment sphere the Council also expresses doubts regarding the provisions on the winding-up of companies in liquidation with a lack of assets when they refer to insolvency law rather than to labour law (article 272-31 of the draft Code).As to intellectual property, regulated in Book 3, Title VI of the draft, the Council notes that the patents act (on which the Council recently gave an opinion) is being revised, which should be allowed for in the draft Code so as not to cause friction or inconsistencies in future legislation. The draft provides for cooperatives both as corporations and as market operators. On this point the Council considers that though the draft states in its article 211(2) that it will apply on a supplementary basis to companies where there is a law that expressly applies to them (as in the case of cooperatives), for these companies a clearer regulatory map should be drawn so as to enhance legal certainty. Also regarding the provisions on cooperatives, the Council does not agree with such companies being ruled out by the draft as subjects of cross-border mergers (article 263-39) and deems that maintaining this exclusion will represent a discrimination against cooperatives. The draft modifies the companies’ registry regulations, providing for the use of electronic media and new technologies and adding new registry requirements. In the Council’s view these new requirements may give rise to double registration issues for certain activities, involving a new burden for business with adverse consequences on productivity and competitiveness and going against the plan for simplification of administration.The Council deems that it is right for the Commercial Code not to include provisions on consumer/user protection, but it sees a need, with a view to enhancing legal certainty, for the Code’s links with legislation regulating and protecting consumer/user rights to be clarified, as some provisions of the Code might be at odds with that legislation. Regarding the definition of company groups (article 291(1)), the Council sees the definition given as positive provided that it is taken as just a first step towards a necessary coordination of commercial law with other fields in which company groups are also regulated, such as, inter alia, tax, insolvency, labour or antitrust law.Finally the future Code is insufficient as regards its contribution to improving the regulatory framework for the legal classification of professional service relationships involving company shareholders, directors and officers. The Council considers that greater legal precision would help ensure legal certainty and clear up doubts on the applicable social security and tax treatment in the classification of earnings from their activity. In this respect the opinion calls for more precision in the new category of “contract with chief executives and directors with executive functions” provided for in article 231(100) of the draft.

Ireland has a high level of households where no-one is working or has very limited access to work. Nearly one quarter of households in Ireland can be described as jobless compared to a European average of 11 per cent. A distinguishing feature of Ireland’s jobless households is the likelihood that they contain children, with children making up nearly a third of those in jobless households. These households have a high risk of poverty, with the danger of transmitting joblessness and poverty across generations.

An exploratory study which catalogues and discusses environmental data and indicators in Ireland. In publishing this research study, the Council makes a number of observations and poses questions for discussion among those interested in environmental policy and analysis. The research includes an overview of existing environmental data as well as a critical discussion of its current use, gaps and possible future directions, drawing on stakeholder interviews.

Adopted by the Council in ordinary session on 28 May 2014The Council welcomes the draft Patents Bill submitted by the Ministry of Industry • The Council supports the objectives of providing a smoother, more flexible and expeditious patents system, of reducing administrative burdens and of adapting the system to Community and international law • It also supports the aim of achieving sounder, higher-quality patents and of discouraging lower-quality applications• It considers, however, that the imposition of a single procedure for granting patents with preliminary examination, dispensing with the current opt-in system, is not sufficiently justified • It proposes, by contrast with the draft bill, that an employee producing an invention within an employment relationship should be entitled to extra contractual remuneration, which could also be provided for in collective bargaining agreements • The opinion states that the Spanish Patent and Trademarks Office should be fully overhauled, not just partially modified In the Council’s view the draft bill will clarify the current legal framework, which dates from 1986, and also encourage R&D and innovation – aspects which the Council always supports.The opinion broadly endorses the bill’s objectives, of providing a smoother, more flexible and expeditious patents system, of reducing administrative burdens and of adapting the system to Community and international law. It also endorses the legislators’ aim of using the bill to achieve sounder, higher-quality patents and discouraging lower-quality applications.On this point the bill’s preamble says “It is necessary to discourage applications for low-quality patents which do not even reach the search phase or which have to be granted despite a negative state-of-the-art report (IET), giving rise to abuses such as “CV patents” and to technological bubbles which distort competition and pass on to competitors and the courts the task of revoking patents which should never have been granted, giving a poor image of our patent system.”Aside from this positive appraisal, the Council’s remarks on the Patents Bill notably include the following: • The Council considers that there is insufficient justification for the new system chosen, of a single patent-granting procedure with a general preliminary assessment of novelty and inventive activity, dispensing with the current opt-in system. An assessment of the costs and consequences of applying the new system would moreover be required. Likewise the draft bill fails to account for the reform of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM) in terms of the costs of notices or of the possible reduction in the volume of employment and so of staff. • Regarding inventions produced within employment or service-provision relationships, the Council takes issue with article 15.2 of the draft bill (“an employee producing an invention will not be entitled to extra remuneration...”), asserting that such remuneration should be payable. The opinion suggests that a mechanism providing for this could be included in employment contracts so as to give the entitlement legal certainty and to prevent litigation. Moreover collective bargaining agreements could also provide for such a remuneration mechanism so as to give it sector-wide scope.• The changes involve higher costs and longer patent-granting periods which will burden small and midsize firms even though the draft bill provides more favourable treatment for SMEs. Accordingly maintaining the current utility models could be a solution for SMEs, though the Council recognises that such models could detract from the drive to achieve higher-quality patents.• The draft bill states that time-limits will be provided at regulatory level whereas the Council calls for these to be included in the law.• The Council also calls on the legislators to take advantage of the bill to go beyond a merely partial review of the Patent Office.• In patent protection for inventions in the field of plants or animals, the Council sees a need for a broad exception to patentability to be guaranteed, excluding conventional reproduction procedures for plants and farm animals, the reproductive materials used and derivative products.

Now that the most critical phase of the financial crisis which hit the euro as a whole and certain EU countries in particular, including Spain, has passed, the Spanish ESC reports on the question of economic governance in the EU for a second time. On this occasion it analyses the measures adopted by Community institutions since late 2012 when the Council adopted its report on “New economic governance in the EU and growth”, in which it made concrete proposals with a view to progressing towards a more integrated and better governed Europe. - Requiring discipline from Member States makes sense only if progress is made in building a federal European government with fiscal powers. Fiscal union in the eurozone should rest on two main pillars: federal budgetary integration and budgetary discipline in States.- Banking union will not be effective until ten years from now, so it will not resolve any current problems.- Macroeconomic imbalances are decreasing and are no longer regarded as excessive in some Member States, such as Spain, though the report stresses that substantial risks remain and that the correction is far from over.- The Council believes that the EU should take steps to make Germany stimulate growth in its internal demand, thereby boosting the European economy.- The report concludes that there is still a long way to go before the transfer of sovereignty by Member States to the Union in the economic and financial sphere is accompanied by greater democratic legitimacy.